


Orange Juice and Sunshine

by IndigoDream



Category: Fate: The Winx Saga (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Friendship, Gen, recovering addict Bloom, recovering addict Riven
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-04
Updated: 2021-02-04
Packaged: 2021-03-15 22:54:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,690
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29197173
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IndigoDream/pseuds/IndigoDream
Summary: There will always be bad days, yes, and days when they swear at each other and insult each other into taking care of themself. Today isn’t a great day, but they have each other.--Riven and Bloom bond over their addiction, and Bloom forces Riven to clean his room.
Relationships: Aisha | Layla/Bloom (Winx Club), Riven & Bloom
Comments: 4
Kudos: 69





	Orange Juice and Sunshine

“You’re a bitch, you know that?” 

“Don’t be a dick, Riven,” Bloom says as she pours out the vodka from his flask into the sink. “I told you I was going to help you and I meant it.” 

“Who asked you to babysit me?” 

He is sitting at the table of his suite, glaring at his glass of orange juice, and she grins. Her eyes flare orange, and he yelps as he lets go of his lighter. 

“Fucking hell, warn a guy!” He tosses the lighter away from him and glares at the ginger head, who smiles serenely. “You are going to hurt me one of those days.” 

“Oh right, you’re afraid of a little fairy, tough guy?” 

He rolls his eyes, drinking his juice. “Very funny, sunshine.” 

Bloom smiles and sits across from him. She likes Riven, more than she would have thought she would the first time she met Sky’s roommate and best friend. He is smart when he wants to, and a bit of an ass most of the time, and she enjoys his company. The bond they had forged had been a surprise for everyone, including them both, and now, only three months since they first started meeting outside of the barrier semi-regularly, and on purpose. 

Well, it had been on purpose for Bloom. Riven had been rather intent on getting her to stop following him. 

“Where did you go right now, stalker?” He tilts his head, fingers itching to get his lighter again, and she resists the urge to sigh. 

He isn’t sober just yet; they are working up to it, slowly but surely. It’s a fight most days, but he is winning, and she is proud of him, although she can’t tell him that. He is too far up his own ass to accept the truth of it, and she knows that for now, he needs to feel in control of this relationship. She remembers it, from when she was in rehab, the intoxicating need of control over interactions, the way she had wanted to have people leave her, so she would have an excuse to fall back into old habits. 

Her father had refused to let go of her though, and she refuses to let go of Riven in that same stubborn manner. There is a strength in solidarity that she had really come to appreciate and enjoy when she had joined Alfea, and she will be damned if she lets Riven sink into a despairing loneliness. He might be a bit of an ass, but he can be a good person. You just have to dig deep enough under his tough guy shell. 

“Thinking about how absolutely shit at cleaning up you are, you slob.” She swats the towel she had been holding at him, and he chuckles. He rarely laughs nowadays, but it’s okay. He’ll build back up to it. “Come on, time to clean your room.” 

“Sunshine, I’m not cleaning my room even if the fucking queen of Solaria shows at my door in ten minutes. What makes you think I will for you?” 

“You will,” she says calmly, and summons her fire to her hand. “Because otherwise I’m making you run fire drills.” 

“You fucking sadist.” 

They had discovered about a month before, when he had stopped taking any harder drugs than weed, that exercise was a good way of making him forget the tremors in his hands, the craving in his stomach, the desperate need that threatened to overwhelm him. At first, he had simply trained with Sky more, at odder hours, and the other boy hadn’t said much, only a bit surprised by the presence of Bloom next to the training ground and the furiousness of his friend. As Riven had slowly stopped drinking, only now drinking up to three glasses of alcohol a day, he had needed more exercise to compensate. So they had gone on runs. Aisha had taken him swimming too, at the request of her girlfriend. Terra, despite her resentment for Riven, had made obstacle courses that he couldn’t predict. 

Bloom was aware of her friends’ doubt towards her friendship with Riven. Terra had been angry with her for a while, until Bloom had explained some of the situation to her, and now she was civil towards Riven, but the fire fairy knew she couldn’t ask more of her. Riven still needed to apologize to Terra, and he would, in due time. For now, he was working on accepting himself. The fact that he had agreed to let Bloom help him, and that he was, for the most part, committed to it… She was proud of him. 

“Yes,” she hums. “I learned that from you, Riri.” 

“Don’t call me that,” he snarls, but there is no heat behind his words and he gets up. “I hate you, you psycho.” 

“Sure you do,” she smiles and follows him, grabbing a bottle of water for him. “Come on, the faster you get to it, the faster it’s over with.” 

“What, you’re my mother now?” 

She snorts. “We both know I’m way cooler than her.” 

He flashes her a smile, and she winks, sitting on his bed. Levelling her with an unimpressed look, he tugs at her ankle and she falls off the bed from the sheer strength of it. She gasps as she falls on the ground and swipes his legs. They struggle like children in the courtyard for a few minutes, until they are both breathless with laughter, and then Bloom pushes him off and away from her, and he lets himself roll on the floor for a second before he stops himself. He stares at her for a heartbeat, and a rare genuine smile graces his features. 

He is quite gorgeous, she thinks idly. One day, he will be even more so, when the dark shadows under his eyes have faded and the slightly too pale shade of his skin has become a proper tan. 

“Oh, gross,” she yelps as she jumps back up. “Is that your dirty laundry?” 

“Hey, you were the one who insisted I clean my room, you deal with the consequences.” He shrugs as he grabs the offending clothing away. 

“Pick up your dirty laundry, fucker,” she orders as she goes to sit over on Sky’s bed, crossing her legs and watching Riven. “When was the last time you cleaned?” 

He thinks for a few seconds and then shrugs. “I don’t know. I clean when I know I have company over. Last time was probably when I broke up with…” 

He trails off, and she feels guilty for making him think of her again. Beatrix had done a right number on him, manipulating him into her games and pushing him to drink and smoke more. He had only told her a few weeks ago about what had really happened with the air fairy; until then, Bloom had known only of the school rumours and Sky’s vehement assertion that Riven wasn’t what people said he was. She had known he wasn’t the first time she had found him in the forest, but hearing his side of the story, knowing what he had gone through so recently… After he had told her, she had gone to the stone circle and let her magic explode out of her, until Aisha had come to wrap her up in her comforting embrace. 

“Well,” she says, trying to find a lighter ground for them to stand on. “Today is an excellent day to do it again.” 

“Don’t you have classes or something better to do?” Riven groans as he starts picking up the other clothes. “Do I really have to listen to you?” 

“Yup,” she smiles serenely again. “You really do have to listen to me all morning long, since I don’t have classes this morning and you don’t have training.” 

Riven groans loudly. “You are a nightmare.” 

“Most people would say I’m an absolute delight.” 

“Yeah, those people don’t know you for shit. Also, no one says that.” 

She snorts and tosses him one of the pillows from the bed. “They fucking should.” 

Avoiding it easily, he smiles to himself, not looking at her, and she can hear him mutter a “they should.” She won’t pick up on it though, wouldn’t dream of it. It’s hard enough for him to open up and admits he likes her, and she wants to let him go at his own pace. She remembers her own time dealing with opening up to new people, how she had been shipped here almost straight out of rehab. Only three months after. Her mother… 

“Hey.” Riven is in front of her, his face pulled in a frown. “Help me out with undoing my bed?” 

He doesn’t need help. She can see he doesn’t, and she knows he is doing this for her sake. She wants to hate how transparent she is to him, how little secrets they have for each other. A fire changeling and a drugged up specialist, two idiots in over their heads who are clutching to each other. 

She rolls her eyes. “Alright, you ass, let’s make your bed.” 

“Well shit sunshine, and here I thought you would be delighted to help me.” 

“I am, does it not look like that?”

They bicker good-naturedly for a little while, and she relaxes again. The girls in the suite are her friends, the best she ever had, but Riven… He is different. They understand each other, and she owes it to him and the world to help him. Beatrix had pulled some shit with him, with everyone at the school, and she had seen him at his lowest. 

The first time she had found him in the forest, it had been a pure accident. She had been wandering out of the barrier, searching for a quiet place to gather her thoughts and keep herself calm, and she had found him up in one of the trees, drinking to forget himself. That had been barely a week after Beatrix had left after she had gotten what she wanted. Riven had been a _wreck_.

“Get the fuck out,” he had growled when she had climbed up to see him. 

“Or what? You’ll fall out of the tree like the drunk bastard you are?” 

“Fuck off, fairy.” 

“Or what, specialist?” She had snarled back in much the same tone, her eyes gleaming orange in the low light that filtered through. The bark behind Riven’s head had heated up and he had yelped, such an amusing sound she hadn’t been able to keep her tough girl attitude and had broken into a laughter fit. “I think you are forgetting which of us has the power here.” 

“Fucking shit, you and your freaky powers. What do you want?” 

“Drinking alone in the forest at 4 p.m, that’s kinda pathetic,” she had shrugged. “And misery does love company, so…”

“So what? Did Sky send you here to spy on me?”

The idea had been laughable, even back there. Sky was lovely, and she did love him, albeit like a brother rather than the romantic way people always assumed. At that time, it had been rather hard for anyone to imagine that Bloom and Aisha had been dating, for months. Bloom had been the one insisting they keep it quiet, albeit the suite and Sky all knew. 

“No, I was out there on my own, and I saw you being a sad, pathetic little jerk.” 

He had snarled, his eyes red with tears and his hands already trembling despite the fact that he was already half drunk. She had known he drank, had known he smoked. She hadn’t realized he had been like this. 

Memories flood her. _The warehouse, needles half broken next to her, loud music and high pitched laughter. She is on a girl’s lap, sharing a joint with her and giggling at something she said. The girl is older, twenty maybe, Bloom doesn’t know. Everything is so blurry, she’s engulfed in a world that swore to protect her, and has done so. They all give her freedom, they all let her drink and smoke and feel important and-_

Riven tugs harshly on the bedding and she is brought back to the present. 

“You are half out today,” he mutters quietly as he finishes taking away all of the dirty bedsheets and tosses them on the side. “What’s up?” 

She wants to smile at his concern, but shrugs instead. “Nothing.” 

“You suck at lying, sunshine.” 

It’s strange how much she enjoys the nickname. He is the only one allowed to call her that, and that is unlikely to change anytime soon. It had started off as a joke, something he would call her to piss her off; after all, Stella is the one with the light powers, and Bloom isn’t much of a sunshine. That’s Terra. Bloom… She knows herself to be good at pretending. Knows how to make people think she is happy, how to keep people from worrying about her. 

It’s nice to hear Riven call her this though. As if, the more he says it, the more chances she has of becoming like that.

"Just thinking about my past," she shrugs. "Nothing important." 

Riven sighs, groans. "Bloom, come on. You can be honest with me." 

It's rare that he calls her by her name. He is unsurprisingly terrible at expressing his feelings, and he has been trying to keep her somewhat away. She knows him by now; he believes that, as long as he doesn't address their bond, it doesn't mean anything. Even if his actions go to show how much he cares, his mind can't stop attempting to protect him from trusting the wrong person again. 

"It won't change anything to talk about," she tries to wave away the subject, but he is having none of it. 

He grabs her hand, squeezing it, looking down slightly to be able to look at her in the eyes. 

"I'm not going to judge you." 

Bloom sighs, her body feeling too small for all her emotions. She has to contain her flames from spreading out of her, and Riven's touch is the only thing keeping her grounded. Riven knows most of her past, knows she went through rehab before joining Alfea. But just like he hasn't told her everything, she hasn't told him everything either. 

"Today," she starts, stops herself. A few more deep breaths and she continues. "Today is the anniversary of my first party with Kaitlyn. She was the one who got me into all... all that shit. She overdosed seven weeks after that, but I was already hooked." 

He sighs again, and when he lets go of her hand, it's to gather her in his arms. She allows the embrace willingly, letting her head drop against his shoulder.

"I wanted to fit in desperately," he says, voice muffled in her hair. "Everyone already loved Sky for being the perfect hero following in his father’s footsteps. Me? I was getting thrown out of every fight, Silva thought me weak, I sucked at everything except biology. A couple of third years offered me a joint at a party, to loosen up.” 

They don’t need to say anything more, silence enveloping them. Bloom won’t be the one to break it, to make Riven retreat back into his usual shell. 

“Alright,” he coughs after a few more seconds, stepping back. “I have cleaning to do, sunshine.” 

She hums, moving back to Sky’s bed. 

There isn’t much to say, and she watches him clean his room. He sucks at it, and she doesn’t hesitate to let him know. At that, he tosses dirty laundry at her, and she laughs brightly. There will always be bad days, yes, and days when they swear at each other and insult each other into taking care of themself. Today isn’t a great day, but they have each other. 

“You’re being sappy,” Riven groans. “Stop it.” 

“Stop what, you dick? Thinking?” 

He rolls his eyes at her and continues cleaning. Bloom grins and shoots a text to Aisha, letting her know she won’t be back for a little while more.


End file.
